Autobiography of a Murderer

(London: Macmillan, 1997) 0333677978. 8vo; original red boards; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pictorial endpapers; pp. (vi) + 201; line drawings. Bump to top edge; top edge of dustwrapper very slightly curled. Very good condition. "Sentenced to life for murder, Hugh Collins served 16 years in prisons in Scotland. Autobiography of a Murderer is his raw, powerful account of the life that led to 'life'. He describes the close-knit world of 1960s Glasgow where drink, thieving and slashing were the measure of a man. Brought up by his grandmother and pumped up with heroic stories of a Robin Hood father who was in prison for most of Collins' youth, he describes the gangland life that led remorselessly to the murder that cost him his freedom. Still the hard man, Collins finds himself in the Special Unit at Barlinnie - the experimental end of the road for violent lifers. A concoction of drugs, art and therapy forces him to face up to the futility of a life of violence. Why did he murder? Once branded a murderer, what kind of life can you live? In often breathtaking prose Collins describes a life of searing brutality - and an afterlife of despair and hope. Autobiography of a Murderer is an honest, riveting story of violence and atonement." .